Bird Control A long-term solution to your bird pest problems

Tuesday 15th October 2024

Dealey Environmental has a team of experts in bird control. They are all passionate about bird welfare and will provide a first-class service to prevent, deter, and control unwanted bird activity that is causing you an environmental or health and safety risk.

Our team supports a variety of industries and sectors, with one element in common - a need to deal with unwanted bird activity. This includes but is not limited to medical facilities, farming areas, manufacturing, food production, schools and high streets. With services provided across Britain, our bird control team will design, install, and implement the most appropriate systems to decrease or clear the site's bird population, reducing any risk to your property, business, and team.

How Bird Control works

Bird control involves preventing birds from causing damage or becoming a nuisance in a specific area. This can be achieved through various measures, such as physical barriers, deterrents, and repellents that discourage birds from feeding, roosting or nesting in unwanted locations. The ultimate goal of bird control is to manage bird populations humanely and sustainably while minimising conflicts between birds and human activities.

Falconry and Bird Abatement

What's the difference between the two terms? Falconry is the art of training and flying birds of prey to hunt prey species. The word "Falconry" normally conjures up a scene from the Middle East with a large Bird of Prey swooping down on a smaller bird, or perhaps Henry VIII, shown in a grand painting with his falcon before a hunt.

Bird Abatement is the art and skill of training and flying hawks and falcons to emulate a hunting bird of prey in a specific or local area to deter the pest birds.

Our team of technicians and birds of prey undergo vigorous training to master the skills, giving our clients confidence that this natural control method is as humane as it gets.

Legislation around Bird Control

Birds in the wrong place can cause all kinds of conflicts with government departments; for example, Under the 1974 Health and Safety Act, companies have a duty of care to their staff to provide a safe and healthy environment to work in, but the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act governs the control of birds and makes it illegal to intentionally kill, injure, or take any wild bird or to damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built. Working with you if a license is required, our trained staff will assess the needs of the licenses and apply for relevant types.

The 2006 Animal Welfare Act, protecting all domestic and wild animals, states that if a bird becomes trapped in your building, you must have or provided water, food, the ability to behave normally, shelter and care, ensuring there is no suffering or harm.

Bird Abatement

Our team includes our wonderful hawks and falcons. They are part of our Dealey family and receive the very best training, support, and welfare possible, just as the human team members do!

Our bird team can be used in both outdoor and indoor areas, using different techniques and approaches to suit the environment.

This is a deterrent service. As explained, falconry is NOT the Dealey way, and we will never encourage killing other birds. Our trained birds of prey are a natural and non-lethal method of controlling bird populations.

We introduce a bird of prey into an area to create fear and risk, which results in stress to the unwanted bird population and encourages them to leave the area. This discourages and prevents feeding, roosting, nesting, and breeding.

We may use a combination of methods:

A hawk may be used first to encourage the pigeons, gulls or other pests to lift from their roosting area and fly.

A falcon may then be introduced, which can fly higher, to expand the risk area to the unwanted birds and encourage them not to return.

A scaring laser can be used as a training tool for the bird of prey to target the area they need to appear to be hunting in and for the unwanted bird population to associate the appearance of the laser light with the fear of the bird of prey. Often, the laser light becomes nearly as effective as the birds of prey.
A drone-style “bird of prey” can be used for sites that are unsafe for birds to fly. For example, areas with large glass buildings, wind turbines or live cables.

Bird Proofing

We offer different bird-proofing solutions. We will assess your site and the specific bird pest issue and design, install and manage the most effective bird-proofing solution.

Bird Spikes are often misunderstood. These do NOT stab, injure, or kill the birds. They are a blunt, spring-loaded metal prong that pushes the bird back and prevents large numbers of birds from landing. We can fit these along ledges, beams on opening windows, gutters, and any surface that would encourage birds to land.

Pin and Wire—a very fine sprung wire is strung between two posts. This option is practically invisible and prevents low to moderate numbers of birds from gaining a steady landing perch by pushing the birds back or up.

Birds Nets –Nets are prominently used as a blanket-proofing system covering a small specific area or an entire building or structure. When installed correctly, they are nearly invisible. We offer various colours and sizes of mesh capable of stopping birds as small as a sparrow.

Electric Shock Track is a hybrid bird–proofing and deterrent system. It’s very low profile and used on all types of ledges and sign boards. It works on a similar principle to an electric horse fence, with the birds receiving a small shock when touched, making them uncomfortable.

Magnetic Field Interference—This is a technology we have introduced from America. It produces a magnetic field that affects the birds’ ability to fly and navigate as they approach the magnetic field, encouraging them to move away from the area. Again, they will learn the area to avoid and alter their flight path in the future.

None of our bird-proofing methods cause harm to the birds. These are proofing methods and deterrents.

Egg and Nest Removal

The gull licence application starts in February and must be submitted by March 15th to Control nesting gulls between March 31st and August 31st. It is limited to certain species. The size of the population will limit the number of eggs and nests that can be removed. To obtain a license, there must be a health and safety risk directly or indirectly caused by the gulls; this service must be combined with deterrents and/or bird-proofing methods. For Moderate to large colonies, our bird abatement or drone is used as a combined service, helping to decrease the population and make the area unappealing for breeding in the future.

Where gulls have been nesting in a large colony for many years, we need to introduce a long-term plan, as it may take several years to deter the whole population from further nesting. It is important to take a rounded approach to egg and nest removal, with clearing and cleaning of gutters, roof debris, and old nests at the end of the breeding season.

Bird Rescue

In line with the 2006 Animal Welfare Act, if a bird becomes trapped in your building, it is your legal responsibility to ensure its welfare. For many companies using our services, having the bird removed/rescued and returned to the environment where it can thrive or taken to a relevant rehabilitation centre is the simplest solution. All birds rescued come with a report of how the bird was captured, what licenses were used, where the bird was released or what care was given to the bird before release, and if required, the ecology report before its release. We rescue all birds, with common species being wrens, sparrows, Robins, pigeons, Geese, Swans, and birds of prey.

Once rescued, if the birds cannot be released close to where they became trapped, we may have to complete an ecology report to find a safe area for release.

Gutter Clearing and Cleaning

As part of our bird control services, we clear and clean guttering of all waste. We can also install our unique gutter guard, designed in-house by our bird control experts. This guard prevents gutters from being overcome by large amounts of debris and washed-down nests, which would cause water ingress and damage to buildings.

A full service

We look at the whole environment to provide an effective, long-term bird control solution. We design a solution which takes action to deter, prevent, and clean to reduce health and safety risks and make the area hostile and unappealing to the pest bird population. These are just a few of the services we offer. Please check out https://www.dealey.co.uk/services/bird-control for more details on how our expert and experienced team supports our clients.

Need our help?

If you have a bird problem, our specialised bird control department can help. We offer a range of effective methods and services to address your bird problem.